At a “talkback” session after last Tuesday’s performance of the new musical “The Nightingale” at La Jolla Playhouse, about 50 audience members stuck around to ask questions and offer opinions on the workshop production.

They brought up issues about modern touches in the show (which is based on the 1843 Hans Christian Andersen fable set in ancient China); about its costumes; about the length of certain scenes and the meaning of certain moments.

No one, though, broached a topic that has inspired heated discussion online (and now all over the media) the past couple of weeks: The fact that the cast of “The Nightingale” includes few actors of Asian heritage.

It’s sure to be a very different story at the Playhouse on Sunday, when the theater hosts a panel discussion in response to the casting controversy.

As reported earlier, the forum, which is open to the public, takes place in the Playhouse’s Potiker Theatre starting about 3:45 p.m. (after the matinee performance of “The Nightingale”).

Christopher Ashley, the Playhouse’s artistic director, will be joined by (among others) Cindy Cheung and Christine Toy Johnson of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition, and Tara Rubin, the production’s New York-based casting director. (No tickets are necessary.)

Composer Duncan Sheik and lyricist Steven Sater, who created “The Nightingale,” told the U-T San Diego before the controversy broke that “color-blind” casting was important to their vision of the story. (The 11-member ensemble includes African-American and white actors as well as two Asian-Americans.)

As a Page to Stage workshop — a show in development — “The Nightingale” is not open to review. But suffice to say that seeing the show both clarifies some questions and raises new ones. While the piece may be reset to a “mythical” China, it still appears unmistakably to be China — by virtue of character names, costumes and other elements.

So while a multicultural cast is certainly in keeping with the show’s universal themes of regret and redemption, casting a non-Asian actor as the emperor at its center seems at least a missed opportunity.

The Playhouse has said repeatedly that “The Nightingale” (like all Page to Stage shows) is very much a work in progress. The theater actually has a strong record on diversity, including bringing aboard the San Diego Asian American Rep as resident theater company in 2010. It will have a chance, and a challenge, to explain its reasoning on "Nightingale" a bit more on Sunday.

• In somewhat happier Page to Stage-related news for the Playhouse, "Peter and the Starcatcher" -- the Tony-winning Broadway play that was developed in the La Jolla workshop program -- appears headed for Hollywood.

Gary Ross, director of the recent hit movie adaptation "The Hunger Games," is in talks to develop the "Starcatcher" movie for Disney, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The show, still running in New York, went up at the Playhouse in 2009. It's a kind of prequel to the "Peter Pan" story, and is based on a novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

• Closer to home: San Diego's Moxie Theatre and Mo`olelo Performing Arts Co. have announced they're teaming for the first time to stage "The Bluest Eye," going up at Moxie next February.

The piece, about a young black girl facing up to racism and self-doubt in 1940s Ohio, is adapted by Lydia Diamond from the novel by Toni Morrison. Diamond's works include the play "Stick Fly," which was staged at Mo`olelo last year and had a subsequent (unrelated) Broadway production.

Tonight (Thursday) at its resident Tenth Avenue Theatre downtown, Mo`olelo also is announcing what it's calling a matter of "national-level arts news" that will have major implications for the organization. Check back here soon for details on that mystery development.